quotes

The most important thing I recently realized is that motivation is not the same as perseverance. Motivation is the kick of excitement and inspiration that propels us towards our goals, and perseverance is our ability to continue to work towards them, even after all of the fun, excitement and pride from starting something new has faded. Perseverance comes from the inside, whatever drives us towards the unique achievements we dream about. Motivation comes from the outside; people who are doing great things that we believe in, and images or videos that make us want to create and experience new things. I, like a good amount of people, tend to respond very positively to motivation, but have trouble persevering when I have a lack of motivation. The hardest part of achieving things is staying on task and maintaining our resolve; think of all the things we could do if we never got bored!

David Foster Wallace put it best:

I wanted to figure out how I could keep my goals up front in my daily life, basically I needed more motivation to continue perseverance. I looked at what I have been most drawn to lately, and of course my journal full of quotes was an obvious clue. I decided to make an inspiration wall in my sewing room, right above the sewing machine so I would be looking at it everyday. I’ve collected 20 or so quotes that are powerful to me, and have printed them out on cardstock to hang. Because I am on a budget, and also because I didn’t want to assign myself more work by going out to buy all the frames and hang them, I decided to tape them up. I will post pictures as soon as I have them up, but in the meanwhile look at the pictures that inspired me! I’m hoping this will be a fun, low maintenance solution to adding more motivation to my life.

I had a kind of epiphany a couple months ago about my life, and life in general. I was sitting on the couch browsing Pinterest and hanging out after finishing work when I realized how fast time had been passing after graduating college last year. I then made a mental list of everything I had achieved in the last season and realized that although I had been doing a lot of fun things with friends and taken some exciting trips, I hadn’t done a lot that was propelling me forward personally or professionally. Each day I was simultaneously happy during my day to day social life, but deeply unhappy with the overall direction of my life. And I didn’t even realize it until that moment.

Laura and I had this one conversation a long time ago that probably stemmed from a moment of extreme exhaustion during finals about what we really wanted for ourselves in the future. We talked about living a “big” life, and something about this phrase carved a place in my heart and has never really left me. There it was- my unspoken truth, the part of me that realized that my ambition and goals weren’t only about having a good career, but were also about always striving for more from myself. Living a big life is about living where you steadfastly go after your dreams, want more than what is familiar, and are constantly “growing” as a person. The terrifying thing about becoming an adult is that when I look closely at the people in my life who are now my peers, I feel like a lot of them have settled for small. They settled in jobs that don’t make them happy, or they were too afraid to move to a new place, or they have simply stopped looking for new passions. Living a small life was my equivalent of going home after work and Pinteresting until I got bored and it was time to go to sleep. I had talked a year before with Laura about keeping my passion for life, and yet here I was on autopilot slipping into a very small way of living. So I decided to do something about it, and this is what I did.

First I bought a journal. If you have never visited the journal wall of Barnes and Noble, you should go right now. There are so many of the most beautiful leather journals on that wall I spent probably 45 minutes looking through to pick the perfect one. I even shamelessly asked a random tall man to help me get a couple down from the top shelf so I could see every option. That was actually very embarrassing, but I haven’t seen him again so oh well haha. I settled on a beautiful black leather one that I divided into three sections: The first section is for writing down the things I am grateful for, and the things that happen daily that make me smile. I also try to write down one random act of kindness everyday. This was actually such a great thing to do, because it made me do things that I wouldn’t normally do. If I didn’t have anything to write down already, I would go do the dishes before someone else got to them, or I would grab a pack of friends favorite pack of gum when I was checking out at the store, or I would call someone I was thinking about that I hadn’t talked to in a while. Really anything counts and I’m such a space cadet I probably wouldn’t have even thought of doing those things before. The second section is where I write down all the quotes that inspire me. I took them from books that I read, Pinterest, or things people have said to me that really stuck. Sometimes I know right away I need to put them in my journal, but other times they end up being things that I’m still thinking about as I go to bed at night. This section is so great because I find myself referencing them when I’m in a bad mood, need patience, or just need a little bit of inspiration to get off my butt and do something. The third section I reserved for fun. It can be lists of books that I’ve loved or want to read, projects that I really want to start, fashion trends I like, or healthy recipes or exercises I want to try. The third section is what I envision writing a lot of on this blog actually.

The journal was a huge step towards getting my priorities straight, and being more mindful of how I was acting and how I was spending my time. It is also where I’m starting to write about what I want to achieve, and then draw out a game plan of how I’m going to get there. You guys, it’s going to be awesome.

Do you have any advise for keeping a journal, or is this something you would want to try?